


Creepy Camp

by Imjohnlocked87, RRipley



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Angry John Watson, Angst with a Happy Ending, BAMF Sherlock Holmes, Camp, Case Fic, Established Relationship, Established Sherlock Holmes/John Watson, Fluff and Humor, John Watson is a Good Parent, Johnlock - Freeform, M/M, Original Character(s), Parent!lock, Parentlock, Rosie's friends - Freeform, Scared Sherlock, Sherlock Holmes Has Feelings, Sherlock is a Good Parent, Worried John
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-04
Updated: 2019-12-13
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:40:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 12,516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21667573
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Imjohnlocked87/pseuds/Imjohnlocked87, https://archiveofourown.org/users/RRipley/pseuds/RRipley
Summary: Sherlock Holmes faced the most bloodthirsty killers impassive. He remained undaunted in front of the barrel of a gun, even when he was unarmed and could stand weeks of torture without losing his lucidity.But in front of these fourteen pairs of eyes fixed on him, his mouth dried up and his brain went blackout.He was terrified.
Relationships: Sherlock Holmes/John Watson
Comments: 6
Kudos: 87





	1. Friend's Camp

Sherlock Holmes faced the most bloodthirsty killers impassive. He remained undaunted in front of the barrel of a gun, even when he was unarmed and could stand weeks of torture without losing his lucidity.

But in front of these fourteen pairs of eyes fixed on him, his mouth dried up and his brain went blackout. 

He was terrified.

******

_Four days earlier_

“Dad, dad, dad, dad, dad, dad, dad, dad, dad, dad, dad, dad, dad, dad, dad, dads!!!!”

Rosie’s piercing cry while climbing the stairs made John and Sherlock jump from the couch and run towards the door, scared. When John opened it, the seeing of a smiling Rosie, panting after running from the school bus stop, made them sighing in relief.

“Daddy! Papa! You know what?” She rocketed her way to the living room, throwing her backpack and coat to the floor. John scowled and looked reproachfully at Sherlock, who merely shrugged. He couldn’t deny Rosie had learnt that from him.

“You know what? You know what?” repeated the six years old girl, jumping up and down in excitement on the coffee table.

“What is it, Rosie?“ asked John, taking his daughter’s hands and helping her to go down from the table, afraid of Rosie’s excitement could make her slip from it.

“You already know it, don’t you, Papa?” Rosie turned to look at Sherlock.

“I have a slender grasp,” he dodged the question, making a gesture that John couldn’t decipher. The sleuth didn’t want to deprive her of the anticipation of telling them what seemed to be the most important event of her life – “but it’s better if you tell Daddy.”

“Friends’ camp! Friends’ camp! We go camping!

“With the school?” asked John, totally lost.

“Nooooooo, Daddy! Friends’ camp!” She looked at her parents, exasperated.

“I’m sorry, Rosie, I don’t know…”

“Creepy Camp” the detective whispered in his husband’s ear,

John shivered. Creepy Camp was the name Sherlock gave to the camping activity organized by Rosie’s school in which parents should take the rest of the classroom to a weekend camping. Thereby, children were in contact with Nature, and, most of all, improved their relationships between them out of the school environment.

Children loved it, but as Molly told them when she organized it for her older daughter’s class, it was a living hell: forty-eight endless hours looking after fifteen wild children, entertaining them, taking care of them, cooking for them, ensure they were comfortable and cozy when (thank God!) they finally went to sleep in the tents… Even the sweet Molly Hooper felt tempted to strangle some of them before the weekend ended.

Listening to her, both Sherlock and John laughed. Since Rosie’s last name starting with W, it would be a long time before they should have to organize it.

“Friends’ camp!” repeated Rosie, though her face started to show disappointment. Clearly, their parents didn’t share her enthusiasm.

“Friends’ camp!” –repeated John, pretending to be delighted. “What a thrill!” he threw Sherlock an incendiary look.

“It’s great,” corroborated his husband “You are going to have a great time!”

“You?” John raised an eyebrow.

“You and the children.”

“ _Me_ and the children?” repeated John, his tone rising. “And what about you?

“I have a lot of work.”

The doctor stifled a guffaw. The detective had been the whole morning sulking about not having a case.

“Papa, you have to come with us!” claimed Rosie.

“Yes, Papa, you have to come with us!” supported John, mimicking his daughter’s tone.

“I…” the only consulting detective in the world, looked for a convincing excuse to avoid to go to the ramble.

“Please, Papa...” pouted Rosie, with a pleading look.

Sherlock sighed, defeated. A weekend being tortured in a medieval dungeon seemed much more appealing for him that being surrounded by loud children, but he couldn’t stand that Rosie’s pleading look. He made an effort to smile.

“Of course I’ll go with you.”

“Fluffy,” mocked John.

“Tonight, you sleep on the couch.”

“Ha!”

Rosie danced across the living room. Then run to pick up her backpack and grabbed a piece of paper.

“The teacher gave me this list for you.”

Both men looked at the paper, a kilometric list of things needed for the camping, most of them provided by the school from former Friends’ camps.

“Do they really think we are going to sleep in sleeping bags used by other people?” Sherlock grimaced.

The doctor laughed. Sherlock was not only reluctant to be touched by anyone but his husband. He also avoided using second-hand items, even though they would have been totally sanitized. The mere idea seemed revolting to him.

“Come on. It would be funny.”

“I don’t see how sharing other human’s mites could be fun,” he growled.

“Simply don’t get naked into the sleeping bag.”

Sherlock seemed on the verge of throwing up about John’s word.

“We’ll buy our own sleep bags.”

“No, we are not going to buy sleep bags we’ll use just once in our life.”

“Yes, we are.”

“No, we don’t. We are going to show our daughter how _great and funny_ sharing is.”

“Even human microbiome?”

“What is human micro… micro?” asked Rosie.

“Nothing” settled John. “Tomorrow, we will go to school to pick up the camping items. ALL of them,” he looked dangerously at Sherlock, who opened his mouth to keep on arguing, but finally decided to close it, clashing his teeth.

So they spent the next three days preparing the field trip.

As John ordered, they went to the school to collect the camping items (that Sherlock only dared to touch wearing his nitrile gloves). The next day, they went to TESCO to buy all the food they could need, though John spent the more part of the time taking out from the trolley all the biscuits, sweet cereals and cakes the detective tried to put inside it.

“Sherlock, they are children, they have to eat healthy, furthermore being me a doctor.”

“But children like sweet food.”

“Do you know what happens when you give sugar to children?”

Sherlock shook his head, a sparkle of interest burning in his eyes.

“Better don’t get to know it.”

“Why? What they do?”

John rubbed his face, realizing his mistake. The detective looked like a beagle that just found a trace, and he wouldn’t lose track of it.

He sighed.

“Sherlock, listen to me. I want you to keep in mind only one thing this weekend. We have a great responsibility for taking those children with us. They are no kind of guinea pig you could experiment with. Do you understand this?

Sherlock looked offended.

“Of course I do.”

“So no experiments, no human body parts, no…”

The detective stiffened.

“Don’t worry. I’ll do my best not being myself,” he retorted and, turning on his heels, abandoned the shop.

“Great,” sighed the doctor.

When he arrived at the flat with all the food, he found Sherlock had arranged the fifteen backpacks, the tents and the rest of the needed items. Rosie was almost glowing of excitement, unable to rest, running from one side to another of the living room, with a little notebook and a pencil.

“Dad, look!” she shouted, drilling John’s ears, “Papa gave me a notebook so I can check everything is ready.”

“And it is?”

Rosie nodded so vehemently she almost fell to the floor.

“You are the best camp organizer in the world,” John chuckled, watching Rosie melting at the praise, exactly as Sherlock when John told him he was brilliant.

He went to the kitchen to organize the food and felt Sherlock’s arms embracing him.

“I shouldn’t have left you with all the shopping, I’m sorry” he muttered in John’s ear.

The doctor smiled and turned to look at Sherlock.

“I’m sorry if I made you feel bad.”

The detective shook his head. Then nodded and shook it again.

“A bit, at first, but I realized you only want this to run smoothly. I know I can be a bit… scary sometimes”.

John chuckled.

“Only a bit?”

“Don’t tempt your luck.”

The doctor kissed the detective and slapped him in the arse.

“How did you manage to organize all of it so quickly?”

“I’m scary and brilliant.”

“And modest.”

Both of them heard the snort coming from the living room and laughed.

****

“Yooohoooo, boys, the van is here,” hummed Mrs. Hudson, peeping her head in the kitchen.

Rosie ran towards her.

“Why don’t you come with us?”

“Darling, though I would love watching Sherlock dealing with your little friends, it’s better for my mental health to remain here.”

Rosie looked at her questioningly. The old woman laughed.

“Have a lovely weekend, dear.”

“Papa! Daddy!” shouted the girl at the top of her lungs, making the woman jump. “We are going to be late! My friends are waiting!”.

Mrs. Hudson covered Rosie’s ears so she couldn’t hear the string of curses that sprouted from the bedroom, where Sherlock and John were both finishing to get ready.

Finally, they both appeared and the landlady couldn’t help to smile watching Sherlock. Instead of his usual suits, he was wearing jeans, a black sweatshirt and trekking boots, visibly annoyed with the change of garment. John, on the contrary, seemed very comfortable in a similar outfit.

“Have fun, Rosie!” said Mrs. Hudson, bending to receive a quick kiss from the girl. “See you on Monday.”

Rosie ran downstairs, and Sherlock and John followed her, carrying all items. The driver helped them to place it all in the boot, and lastly, they entered the van.

“Don’t let them know you are afraid of them,” advised John, gently pushing Sherlock in the first row of seats, since the detective froze in the aisle when they were received by the riot of fifteen six years old overexcited children.

“I’m not scared,” retorted the detective, sinking in the seat.

John chuckled, observing the sleuth looking at their flat windows as a shipwrecked would look at the lifeline.

“Come on, it will be funny,” said John joyfully.

And then, as the van left Baker Street, the fifteen children started singing “The wheel on the bus.”

“Or maybe not.”

Sherlock groaned.


	2. John, the snake charmer

“John, we have to find a way to organize them,” panted Sherlock, chasing two of the kids that pretended to run away from the camp to explore the surroundings on their own. He carried one of them in each arm and left both in the centre of the campground, where the doctor and the detective finally managed to gather all of them together.

He was barely able to think. His brain was overwhelmed, processing hundreds of deductive data coming from the children. And, unlike in the adults, the data they provided changed almost every second, obliging Sherlock’s mind to catalog them over and over, for once the data flow running almost at the same speed as his mighty mind.

John, on his part, was bent down, hands on his knees, trying to catch his breath, swearing about not being as fit as he was in the army.

The reason? After getting off the bus, the children remained still for about one-tenth of a second. After that, Sherlock and John felt as if a supernova had exploded in the camp, expelling screaming kids able to run in all directions at the same time, kids that proved to be much sneakier than any of the criminals they were used to prosecute. It took the two adults more than half an hour to bring them together.

“And what do you suggest me to do?” asked John, trapping one little fugitive who tried to escape between his legs.

“You were a captain, weren’t you?” retorted Sherlock, opening his arms to contain more children’s escapes.

“Yes, but not in a damned kindergarten,” angrily muttered the doctor between his clenched teeth.

Suddenly, his face lighted up.

“You are a genius,” he smiled.

“Obvious, but why?” replied Sherlock, blushing at the kid’s giggles.

“Are you ready to play?” John shouted to the kids in his captain’s voice but adding a playful note on it.

“Yes!” some the kids replied.

“No, I don’t think so. I could barely hear you. Are you ready to play?”

“YES!!!!,” all of them shouted at the top of their voices.

“For this game, we need to form five teams. In each team, for every task, there will be a captain, and the rest of the team should obey them”.

“Without complaining?” asked Sarah, Rosie’s best friend, delighted.

“Only if the proposal is logical,” pointed Sherlock. The children looked at him, puzzled. The detective blushed, looking at his husband for help.

John giggled.

“You can complain in case you disagree, but fighting is not allowed, understood?”

All nodded firmly, excited about the idea of being captains, and watched silently as John rummaged in his backpack and produced a small notebook. He took fifteen sheets and in five of them wrote a T, in the other five a C and finally an S in the last five. He folded each piece of paper several times and introduced all of them in his cap.

Sherlock was shocked. The former bunch of hysterical creatures were now immobile like statues, immersed in John’s maneuvers, their mouths opened with expectation, their eyes focused in each and every doctor’s movement as if John were some kind of snake charmer.

“Well, each of you should pick up one paper. Those with the T will be in charge of the tents, those with the C in charge of the cooking, and those with the S in charge of the sleep time. Then, you’ll form five teams, each of them with a C, a T and a S. Tomorrow, the C’s will be T’s, the T’s S’s and so. And on Sunday, we will rotate again, so don’t worry if you don’t get what you want to be today. It’s clear?”

All of them nodded, looking at the cap as if it was the Cornucopia.

“Don’t open your paper until all of you have one.”

John passed the cap, so each of them could take his paper. If any of them tried to snoop it, they were quickly rebuked by the rest, especially by Rosie, who, looking wide-eyed at her father, seemed about to burst with pride.

Then he repeated the operative, this time writing numbers 1, 2, and 3 in each piece of paper. Twenty minutes later, he had the teams organized and ready to set the tents.

“Brilliant,” muttered Sherlock, amazed.

John smiled widely. It was great to be the brilliant one from time to time.

“T Captains! Are you ready?”

Setting the camp together was another game, since the tents provided by the school were pop-up models, so they only had to throw them in the air. Even Sherlock seemed to enjoy it, and John loved to see his husband running from group to group, helping the children to fix the tents to the ground, his cheeks blushing from the effort, the excitement, and the fresh air.

When they finished, it was almost dinner time, so John organized the C captains to help him cooking, while the rest, helped by Sherlock, set the big portable table stored in a little shed next to the camp and distributed seventeen camping stools around it.

In the shed, there was also a little kitchen, were John and his team prepared a great pot of pasta with tomato and tuna, and soon all of them were having dinner, the children chirping about what they were going to do next day.

Sherlock raised his head from his phone when he felt the presence of one of the children standing next to him.

“You have to clear your plate,” Tommy, the child, ordered.

John stifled a burst of laughter. The detective, according to his eating habits, only took several bites of his plate and set it aside to check his phone. Since one of the C Captains’ tasks was to assure that everyone ate the whole serving, the kid didn’t hesitate to reprimand Sherlock for not following the instructions.

Sherlock ignored Tommy and focused again on his phone, hoping the kid left him alone. But, an instant later, he had the five C Captains in front of him, and the rest of the kids’ eyes fixed on him.

“You have to clear your plate,” repeated this time a chorus of five voices.

“I’m not h… ouch!” John kicked him with all his strength, throwing him a warning look.

“Eat,” the doctor mouthed, raising his eyebrows to emphasize the order.

The detective shook his head slightly. 

“E.at” mouthed John again, glancing at the children and then at his exasperating husband. Sherlock knew that look. Defying it wouldn’t be a wise decision, so sighing loudly, he started eating again, still checking his phone.

“My mummy says phones are not allowed while eating,” said Paul, another C captain, and the rest hummed in agreement.

Sensing John’s foot getting ready to kick him again, he dropped the phone on the table.

“Actually,” said John extending his palm, “I think phones shouldn’t be allowed during the whole camp. Yours should be in the tent, as mine”.

“No,” protested Sherlock, instinctively grabbing the phone against his chest. The children laughed.

The doctor wiggled his fingers, claiming for the phone.

“You have to obey him. He is the Colonel,” assured Mike, Tommy’s twin brother.

“You are a Captain.”

“I’ve been promoted,” smiled John smugly.

Frustrated, but realizing he had no choice, Sherlock dropped his phone on John’s hand, who put it in his pocket.

“You’ll see, now he is going to pout,” whispered Rosie, making his friends and John giggle.

Sherlock was effectively about to do it but refrained himself. Instead, he ate his bad mood altogether with the pasta. Once he cleared his plate, he stood and walked away from the camp, disappearing in the darkness.

Twenty minutes later, John found him sat on the trunk of a dead tree.

“Hey,” he said softly, sitting at his side and giving him a caring tap with his shoulder.

“Go with the kids. You have a lot of fun together,” Sherlock muttered, upset.

“Not as much fun as I have with you” John smiled, dropping Sherlock’s phone in the detective’s hand “I’m sorry, but if you hadn’t eaten everything, tomorrow we will have a bunch of mutineer kids that wouldn’t want to eat either.”

“And the phone?” Sherlock pouted.

“That was funny,” he giggled and kissed Sherlock’s nose.

“You kicked me” protested the detective, but John detected a trace of a mockery in his tone.

“Did I hurt you?”

“A lot.”

“Maybe this helps you to feel better,” kissing Sherlock’s lips.

“A bit.”

He kissed Sherlock again.

“And now?”

“Much better.”

They heard suppressed chuckles and “eeewwws” behind them, and then Rosie saying: “You see? I told you. Kissing all day long”.

Both John and Sherlock almost could hear their daughter rolling her eyes. They looked at each other, mutely counting to three, and, suddenly, they raised, roaring. The piercing cries of the kids filled the night, all of them running at full speed to avoid being chased by the roaring adults that led them to the tents. With the help of the S team and several stories John told them, the fifteen children were sleeping soundly after a while.

John and Sherlock, exhausted, entered in their tent, and after taking their boots, they both cuddled into their sleeping bag.

“I’m dead tired now,” mumbled John. “But tomorrow, you and I will talk about this brand new sleeping bag.”

Sherlock simply hummed. He hadn’t been so exhausted in his whole life.

“We have to make a huge gift to Rosie’s teacher,” he muttered, “How can she deal with those kids during the whole year?”

John chuckled.

“Switching topics won’t save you from the lecture.” 

Sherlock smiled and kissed his husband goodnight.

*****

The next morning, after rotating everyone’s captaincy, John and the C team made breakfast as Sherlock and the rest of the kids prepared sandwiches and juice for the trip to a nearby river they had planned.

John couldn’t help smiling, looking at Sherlock. Thought the detective seemed a bit more relaxed with the kids, he still found hard to deal with them, and whenever any of the children showed any kind of affection to him, he literally ran towards John for help. For the doctor, it was kind of adorable to see his husband so insecure, unskilled and so out of his element, mainly because all the shields and self-defenses he used to deal with the adults in his daily life turned out to be totally useless with the kids. They had the exceptional talent to dodge them and reach easily the vulnerable and sensitive core the detective had only shown to John and Rosie. And the fact that Sherlock was going through all of it for Rosie still made the doctor marvel at how distant the pretended high functional sociopath was from the genuine Sherlock. The detective was right. The world was full of idiots.

Soon they were ready for the trip.

They had been hiking for almost ten minutes, John and Rosie leading the group and Sherlock the last in line, to make sure none of the kid got lost when John and his daughter looked at each other, astonished. Sherlock was singing. Not humming a classical piece of music, as he used to do. He was actually singing _Baby Bumble Bee_ , his deep and silky voice wrapping the group. But not only singing, no. He was cupping and clapping his hands, according to the song’s choreography. He sang the two first lines of the song by himself, and soon the kids joined him, delighted and amused, hiking to the music, performing the song as Sherlock was doing:

_I’m bringing home a baby bumblebee,_

_Won’t my mommy be so proud of me,_

_(Cupping hands together as if holding a bee)_

_I’m bringing home a baby bumblebee,_

_Ouch! It stung me!_

_(Shaking hands as if just stung)_

_I’m squishing up the baby bumblebee,_

_Won’t my mommy be so proud of me,_

_(Squishing bee between palms of hands)_

_I’m squishing up a baby bumblebee,_

_Ooh! It’s yucky!_

_(Opening up hands to look at ‘mess’)_

_I’m wiping off the baby bumblebee,_

_Won’t my mommy be so proud of me,_

_(Wiping hands off on shirt)_

_I’m wiping off the baby bumblebee,_

_Now my mommy won’t be mad at me!_

_(Holding hands up to show they are clean)_

John turned around, smiling for himself. He read somewhere that sharing time with children awoke the inner child that lives inside every human being, and looking at the singing Sherlock, he could almost see the kid Mycroft described before the Victor Trevor’s incident, a light-hearted and playful one. He threw Rosie a complicit gaze and put a finger in his lips. If Sherlock realized what he was doing, the spell would be broken.

After a while, they reached the river. To reach the meadow where John planned to spend the day, they had to cross it using a path of stones created for that purpose. It wasn’t too deep, but the doctor didn’t want to come back with a bunch of sneezing kids due to the cold water.

John crossed first and waited for Rosie and her friends to do the same. They crossed with more or less confidence, some of them walking as if they did it every day, others like if they were passing through sharks infested waters.

Tommy, the twelfth of the line decided to cross by jumping on one leg from stone to stone, ignoring John’s warnings. With a cry, the boy slipped and fell into the water. John ran to rescue him as Sherlock, picking the remaining three children, crossed the river in big strides without using the stone path.

When he reached the other edge, John was examining Tommy’s foot. The boy was crying, one hand covering a sore in his forefront where he hit with the rock and the other trying to set-asides John’s hands from his ankle, but the doctor moved the kid’s hand and examined it.

“He has a sprained ankle” John pursed his lips “He won’t be able to walk and I don’t have here anything to wrap it. Apart, I need to dress the head wound”.

Sherlock checked the trip route on his phone. He pointed to the northwest.

“According to the map, there is a house at around one kilometer from here. We could ask the owner for a ride to the nearest hospital”.

The doctor nodded and Sherlock motioned to catch the boy. John shook his head.

“I will carry him to the house. You should come back to the camp and wait there until the van arrives”.

Sherlock threw a nervous look to the kids. They, a bit scared of Tommy’s cries of pain, looked back at him.

“Sherlock, I’m a doctor and I…”

“I know, but I don’t need a medical degree to bring him to the house and call the ambulance and the van”.

John sighed. Maybe the detective was right, and it would be better that he stayed with the other kids. But when he was about to hand Tommy to Sherlock, the kid grabbed tightly John’s hunter and shook his head. 

“You,” he said.

“Come on, Tommy, you’ll be right with Sherlock.”

The kid shook his head again.

“You,” he repeated.

“All right,” John agreed, “Sherlock, come back to the camp with the kids.”

“John, I can’t…”

“Please, love…”

New giggles.

Sherlock gave in and nodded. John was checking his pockets.

“I left my phone at the camp.”

The detective gave his to John.

“Will you be able to go back to the camp?”

Sherlock rolled his eyes. Of course, he remembered the route perfectly.

“When I arrive at the house, I’ll call the van to pick you up. In case it won’t be able today, it will appear tomorrow, ok?” Sherlock nodded, silently praying for it to arrive today.

“You’ll get it right” John smiled and kissed Sherlock in the cheek. He turned to Rosie and the rest.

“Obey Sherlock, ok, he is the Colonel now, ok?” he squatted and drew Rosie to him “Help Papa, ok bumblebee?” the little girl nodded, looking concerned at Tommy “Don’t worry about him. He’ll be fine”.

Rosie smiled. If her daddy said Tommy was going to be ok, he will. She kissed John’s cheek and embraced him.

John carried Tommy in his arms and walked towards the house.

The detective sighed and turned around.

Sherlock Holmes faced the most bloodthirsty killers impassive. He remained undaunted in front of the barrel of a gun, even when he was unarmed and could stand weeks of torture without losing his lucidity.

But in front of these fourteen pairs of eyes fixed on him and only on him, his mouth dried up and his brain went blackout. 

He was terrified.


	3. Unwelcome visitors

Suddenly, he was again the child that nobody liked. The child that was insulted and segregated at the school, the child that, on a daily basis, was cornered, bullied and beaten by his school mates for being different, making him feel dreadful just for being himself. 

He knew it was nonsense. He was an adult now and the kids were inoffensive. But, without John and with all of them staring at him, the pain, the loneliness, the suffering and the fear stiffed him as then.  
He had to control himself. He had to take charge of the children. But he was trembling, unable to breathe.

Suddenly, he felt something in his hand. He blinked several times, trying to focus, and when finally managed to do it, he realized it was Rosie’s tiny hand, holding his large one, squeezing it gently, just in the same way John did when he, frightened or hurt, hide himself in his Mind Palace. He looked at Rosie, her big blue eyes, John’s eyes, looking at him in the same reassuring way, rescuing him from his nightmare, holding the hand of the hurt child inside Sherlock.

“Papa, we have to go back to the camp,” she simply said and squeezed his hand again.

He blinked several more times to clear the fog from the past in his brain and nodded.

He didn’t want another accident on the river, so he carried the kids piggyback one by one to the other shore. At first, he just walked, but soon he was jumping and splashing in the water, running from shore to shore to transport them, which was celebrated with laughers and excited cries from the children, carried in pairs, in threes… Suddenly, he felt as when he played pirates with Victor in the shore, both running and splashing through the water also. He lost count of how many times he crossed the river.  
At halfway, Sherlock realized the kids hadn’t eaten anything yet, so he made them stop and they ate their sandwiches in the wood under the shade of the trees.

“Thanks a lot, Bumblebee,” he muttered. Rosie kissed him in the cheek.

“I love you, Papa.”

“I love you too, Bumblebee."

Sherlock placed several tree's branches as seats into a circle. He sat on the bigger one and Rosie sat on his leg to eat her sandwich. Some minutes later, Sarah climbed next to Rosie. The detective tried to get her back to her branch, but she didn’t move an inch and Rosie asked him to let her friend at her side. Then, Mike mimicked them and climbed to his other leg, after he appeared Paul… and soon, the sleuth was almost buried by the kids.

Rosie giggled. Sherlock reminded her of the scene of one of her favorite Disney’s movies, Beauty and the Beast, when the Beast fed one bird and a second later, he had birds all over his head, shoulders, back, arms and hands. She whispered it to Sarah, and both of them chuckled at Sherlock’s puzzled expression.  
Sherlock wasn’t comfortable having his personal space, usually so well defended, invaded in that way, but he didn’t want to disappoint Rosie, who now seemed so proud of him. And, in his heart, he couldn’t deny he enjoyed being, for once, part of the group. He only regretted John not being there to see it.

It was darkening when they reached the camp. The van wasn’t there, so they were supposed to be picked up tomorrow. Soon, with the help of the S team and after reading them a story, the kids were sleeping and Sherlock dropped himself in his sleeping bag.

He missed John. He had the hope of phone him, but he didn’t find his husband’s phone, so he sighed and closed his eyes, trying to sleep. His mind was buzzing, but his body was weary, and he needed to recover himself from dealing with the kids’ pack tomorrow.

Sherlock woke abruptly. He strained his ear and looked around, wondering why he had awakened, but all remained silent and dark. Maybe it was some of the kids, so he emerged from his tent and checked the children’s ones. All of them were sleeping calmly.

He stopped dead, tilting his head, listening, scanning the darkness around him. Something was wrong.

He took one heavy log from the now put out fire and, holding it like a baseball bat, walked towards where his instinct told him to go.

Voices, men rustling voices climbed up the little hill. He lied down on the ground to watch them without being seen. Eight men may be lost ramblers looking for a shelter. Sherlock crawled to observe them better. 

He held his breath. None of them were rambles. Judging by their body language, they were wriggling away from something, probably the police and were looking for a place to hide.

The shed. They were looking for the shed near the camp. Sherlock bit his lower lip, calculating his possibilities. Surely they were armed, and, even not, he couldn’t risk being captured and let the children at their mercy. First, he had to pull the children to safety.

He crawled back to the camp. According to their step speed, he wouldn’t have more than ten minutes before they arrived at the shed. Sherlock entered Rosie’s tent and woke her up. The girl rubbed her eyes and muttered a protest.

“Bumblebee, I need you to help me to play a game.”

“Now? It’s still night time, Papa”.

“Yes, I know, but this is a nocturnal game. I need you to help me to wake your friends up, but you have to do it in complete silence. We are going to see a baby fallow deer, but you must be quick because they are not patient”.

The little girl nodded, excited by the idea and run to the next tent, trying not to make a sound. Sherlock went to the others, waking the rest of the child. Soon all of them were wearing their pajamas, jackets and boots, shivering with cold, but they didn’t have time for more. The kids were doing their best to be silent, though some of them couldn’t give small excited shouts, quickly silenced by Sherlock. He picked up his backpack.

The detective closed his eyes, recovering the map of the zone from his mental palace, looking for a place to hide the children. He opened his eyes and started walking, followed by fourteen tiny excited explorers.

Fifteen minutes later, they arrived at a rock formation similar to a dolmen. It wasn’t a megalithic one, but one built around the eighties and appeared on the map because it was a great refuge during a lightning storm. Instead of the usual three rocks that formed the dolmen, two vertical and one horizontal lying over the other two, this dolmen had another one leaning over the two vertical ones, like a wall, so the children would be warmer and safe inside it. The detective made all of them sit on the ground.

“We have to stay very, very quiet, because if the baby fallow deer hears us, he won’t come here, alright?”

The kids nodded bodily, their eyes opened wide, trying to dissipate the darkness and the dim fog that surrounded the wood at night. Sherlock couldn’t help feeling a twinge of guilt, thinking about the kid’s disappointment when they’ll realize there was no fallow deer.

He wasn’t sure about what to do. On the one hand, he couldn’t let the kids by themselves. On the other, a gang of criminals was hidden in the shed, but maybe only for a few hours, and they will escape. He cursed for not having his phone. Trust in the Yarders as capable of following the criminals to the shed was as futile as the children's hopes to see the fallow deer.

Finally, the detective decided to stay with the kids. They were his responsibility and John trusted  
him. He took some blankets out from his backpack and fourteen energy bars, covered the kids with the blankets, and made them ate the bars. (Fortunately, he didn’t have one for him. He had eaten in two days more than he usually did in one week and his stomach was complaining of the effort).

Sherlock clicked his tongue. He forgot to bring water, and since they didn’t know how much time they were to spend in the dolmen, he will soon need to find it.

Soon the kids started complaining about the long waiting and about wanting to go back to the camp.  
He patted his forehead.

“Sorry, kids, the baby won’t come now, but at dawn,” the children groaned in protest and some of them stood intending to go back to the camp. “I misunderstood John.”

Rosie looked at his Papa. It was a lie on the size of the Tower Bridge. Sherlock never misunderstood John. Moreover, Sherlock never misunderstood anyone. But her Papa was the smartest man of the world (more even than uncle Myc, but as he made a lot of fuss when Rosie told him that, she would never repeat it in front of his uncle), so the little girl decided to carry on with Sherlock’s game.

“It will be an adventure” was saying Sherlock, trying desperately to convince the kids to remain there

“And we will be the first to see them, because tomorrow will come to a lot of people to see it, and we’ll have the best place.”

That seemed to calm them for a while, but the final push was Rosie clapping her hands about the adventure, and soon all of them were settling on the blankets, disregarding the coldness or the sleepiness. Only mattered the fallow deer.

Later, when the kids started complaining about being thirsty, Sherlock, left Rosie and Sarah in charge of them (they both were the Colonels now, which seemed to please Sarah to unimaginable levels) and went out from the dolmen, looking for a nearby stream that appeared in the map. 

He had walked around two hundred meters when he heard voices approaching. The gang! But how…?

He mumbled a curse. Accustomed to go alone and move without being noticed, he disregarded the footprints fourteen kids could leave on the muddy ground, clearly visible now. The fugitives only had to follow them and they’ll reach the dolmen. He ran back with the children and took his daughter apart.

“Rosie, the water is farther than I thought” the little girl frowned “If it takes me a long time to come back, tomorrow you should ask someone to get all of you back home, do you understand?”

“But Papa!” protested Rosie, a bit frightened.

“You know people,” assured Sherlock. “You know in who you can trust to get you back home,” he caressed her hair, trying to calm her daughter “Remember what I taught you. But I promise you I’ll be back. This is only in case I’m late, ok? You are a brave girl. You could do it”.

Rosie nodded, still worried.

“Now, wait for the baby with your friends.”

“There is no fallow deer, isn’t it, Papa?”

Sherlock wasn’t caught off the ward. He could read perfectly in his daughter’s face that she knew he was lying but was smart enough to know that the detective would have a reason to do it.

“Of course there is it” he detested lie to her daughter, but he didn’t want to frighten her more. “And if you don’t go back to the dolmen, you won’t see it. Only remember you all have to be very, very quiet to see it”.

She raised an eyebrow in a very Sherlockian way. She didn’t buy the lie, but she nodded and came back with her friends.

The detective turned and went to a point where he could intercept the men. He hid behind some bushes, plotting an ambush, but before he could move, he heard a shotgun safety-catch being unlocked and felt the coldness of a barrel against his nape.

Sherlock smiled.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The story grew a bit more than expected, so we added two more chapters
> 
> Thanks for reading and staying tuned!


	4. Sherlock, what did you do?

Sherlock raised his hands slowly.

“Who are you and what are you doing in my property?” asked a hoarse voice in an imperative tone, pressing the barrel to the detective’s head.

“I’m Sherlock Holmes and I…”

“Sherlock Holmes? The detective? Yes, and I’m Harry Potter. Let’s start again, mate. Who are you and what are you doing in my property?” he repeated, pressing the barrel with more force this time.

Sherlock sighed. He should never have left his Belstaff in Baker Street.

“My name is William, and I need your help,” the detective said.

“Yeah, what for Billy? For stealing my cattle?”

“A stolen sheep will be the last of your concerns in a few minutes. And I’m not Billy. I’m William,” he hissed.

“Let’s try again, Billy, what you need my help for?”

“I was camping here with my daughter and her friends. Tonight I was checking they were alright when I saw some men approaching the camp”.

“They could be ramblers. Why do you think they are dangerous?”

“I heard him talking,” lied Sherlock. It wouldn’t be worthy of trying to explain the man he deduced it “I’m camping with fourteen kids. I cannot put them at risk”.

The man whistled.

“Fourteen kids? What are you, some kind of masochist?” the man turned the gun away from Sherlock’s nape. The detective stood slowly and turned to watch the man.

_A shepherd, a widower for around ten years, lives alone with a dog, a border collie maybe since he has black and white dog fur in his trousers and it’s a shepherd. Solitaire doesn’t like people. Doesn’t trust people, good shooter, good-hearted, reliable._

“You said you need my help, what for?”

“I need you to watch the kids while I… watch the men.”

The man meditated for a second.

“Show me the kids.”

Sherlock walked back towards the dolmen. He smiled. Rosie and her friends were sitting in a perfect line, quiet and still, waiting for the fallow deer to appear.

“How did you manage to do that?” asked the man, astonished. A sad shadow crossed his eyes. Sherlock scanned the darkness around them to be sure they hadn't t been found by the fugitives.

“Two words: fallow deer.”

The man looked at Sherlock.

“You know they won’t see one of them in this time of the year, don’t you?”

The detective nodded.

“I needed to take them from the camp without scaring them. I’ll deal with that later”.

“And who is your daughter?”

“The third from the left.”

The man looked at Rosie and then at Sherlock’s dark curled hair and raised an eyebrow.

“Actually, she is my stepdaughter, my husband’s daughter, for previous marriage, with a woman.”

The man chuckled amused.

“You are a funny person.”

It was Sherlock’s turn to raise an eyebrow.

“Will you help me? They are almost here, and I wouldn't like to put them in danger.

The man nodded. Both of them approached the children.

“Kids, this is …”

“Rowan”

“This is Rowan,” explained Sherlock “he’ll help you to feed the baby fallow deer when you see” the shepherd frowned deep but didn’t say anything.

“Do you know what the deer eat?” asked Rosie. The man nodded.

_He had a son or a daughter. Died at the same time as his wife, car accident probably. He or she died when he was around Rosie’s age. Hadn’t overcome the loss yet._

“Of course,” mumbled the man, his voice trembling a bit. “I’ll tell you exactly what when we see them.”

“Them?” Do you mean we are going to see more than one?” asked Sarah.

“A flock, if we are lucky.”

“Rowan,” warned Sherlock.

“Go to your business Billy; I’ll take care of them,” the man ordered, looking fondly at the kids. Sherlock winkled at Rosie and went back where he was hidden when Rowan found him.

Four of the convicts were sat in the darkness, eating what Sherlock recognized as the low sugar biscuits and some cans that John bought for the kids, talking about something related to Belmarsh and hostages. Sherlock twisted his mouth. They were planning to take Rosie and the others as hostages to guarantee their escape.

He weighed some stones around him. They should be heavy enough to knock down the men but not so much as to kill or severely injure them, and without sharp borders. Finally, with his ammunition prepared, he looked for the best angle for his shot. In his mind, he could perfectly deduce how the other three men would react when he tore down the first one, where they would go, or try to hide. Having all of this on account, he narrowed his eyes, pointed and threw the first stone, that crossed the air with a whistle and hit the targeted man’s temple, who fell to the ground, unconsciousness.

As Sherlock expected, the other jumped on their feet and pulled out their weapons. Only one of them had a gun; the other was gripping prison self-made knives. They ambled, trying to catch any movement around them. The detective moved a couple of meters and stood again, threw the stone, and beat the man of the gun before he could shoot, whose body slumped heavily.

The remaining two run towards where the place from they thought the stones were launched, but Sherlock had thrown the shells with an angle that modified its path in that way that was impossible to guess the actual detective’s location.

The sleuth leveraged his advantage and hit the two of them. Then he cut several flexible bush branches and intertwined them to get a kind of strong rope he used to immobilize the fugitives.

After tying them, Sherlock sat for a while in the ground, resting. Then he went to the camp for the other four. When he was about to arrive, he stopped and observed.

Two of the prisoners were searching the tents, throwing out everything they found inside, undoubtedly looking for money. They had pulled out three of them from their fixation, and Sherlock glared at Rosie’s stuffed bumblebee, half-buried in the mud. The other two fugitives stayed in the shed, eating and chatting.

The sleuth waited till one the men entered into the tent nearest to him, which was out of sight from the shed, and, jumping on it, he trapped the man inside the fabric. The man cursed, kicked and fought, but before he could free himself, Sherlock quickly removed the tent fixings and wrapped the cloth around the man’s body. Finally, he knelt on the man and used the tent ropes to fix the pack firmly. The man kept kicked frantically, but the fabric muffled his shouts. Sherlock dragged the lump out of the camp and, searching for a stone, knocked down the other man, in the same way, the first four, and hauling the body next to the first one; he tied him up with the rest of the tent ropes.

Then, he waited. He knew, sooner or later, the other would get suspicious about their buddies’ silence. 

“Ryan?”

The man emerged from the shed, a great piece of cheese in one hand and a gun in the other, which Sherlock recognized as the ones used by the prison officers in the High-security prisons. The fugitive looked around, searching for his mates, and, angry, called the other one.

Sherlock crouched down, waiting.

The last convict abandoned the shed grudging, joining his mate.

“Ryan?” repeated the first one, this time in a more worried tone.

The man wrapped in the tent should have heard him, because he started shouting and trashing again, making both men walked towards Sherlock, who, totally covered by mood, proved to be almost invisible in the darkness. So the detective let the man wiggle and muffle, and waited until both criminals almost tripped over him. Then the detective stood up and hit one of them on the lower valley of the throat, making him chock and, blocking the other’s punch with his forearm, threw an uppercut to his jaw under his chin. The man fell to the ground. He turned around and gave a jab to the other’s man temple, who also got unconsciousness. Then he moved both knocked out men next to the others, gagged and tied them up, getting sure they couldn’t escape. Finally, panting and grunting for the effort, he hauled all the bodies near a big tree at around fifty meters from the camp. He didn’t want the kids to see them.

He sat on the wet floor, resting, looking at the devastated camp. After a while, he walked to Rosie’s bumblebee and picked it up. It started raining, Sherlock raised his head, closed his eyes and let the rain clean the mud from his face. Then he got on his feet and went back to the dolmen.

He stopped in front of it, shocked.

There was no sign of the children.

******

At St. Barts, Molly frowned and walked to the man who was talking to a couple. She looked at her watch. There were six in the morning, and the man wasn’t supposed to be there.

“John?” she asked doubtfully.

“Hi, Molly.”

“I thought you were in the Cr… in the Friend’s camp”.

“And I was, but Tommy, one of the kids, decided to get creative while crossing a river, and I had to bring him to the hospital.”

Molly laughed.

“I hope is nothing serious.”

“No, only a sprained ankle and a bruised forehead.”

John rubbed his face. He was tired after the long walk towards the house carrying Tommy. When they arrived, there was none in the house, so he had to wait for the owners to get back to the house. Happily, in a garden shed, he found a first aid kit, so he could wrap Tommy’s ankle and dress his forehead wound.

When finally the owners arrived, as it was beginning at dusk, they invited John and Tommy to overnight at the house. John doubted, but he decided it was better to wait to the next day to call Tommy’s parents and arrange the van to pick up Sherlock and the rest of the kids.

He missed talking with Sherlock. He didn’t want to admit it, but he was worried about how Sherlock would be doing with the kids. The detective seemed shocked when he walked away.

“Thank you for bringing our son to the hospital,” said the woman, taking John out of his thoughts. “We know he can be a bit annoying, always getting into trouble.”

“Don’t worry, it’s a good kid” John smiled “What matters now is that he get well soon and learn his lesson.”

“Do you want me to call the rest of the parents?” asked Molly.

“The rest of the parents?”

“You brought the rest of the kids with you, didn’t you?”

“No, they stayed in the camp with Sherlock. A van will pick them in an hour”.

A couple of minutes later, Molly’s phone buzzed in her pocket. She checked it, gasped and took John apart.

“Look,” she said, showing him the screen.

It was Rosie’s class parents WhatsApp group. Tommy’s father, after explained what happened to Tommy, wrote that the other kids remained at the camp with Sherlock (only - with - Sherlock, he highlighted), and the rest of the parents got instantly mad, writing messages about experiments, antisocial behaviour and taste for crime. 

John sighed, looked for Sherlock’s phone and unlocked it. Of course, the git hadn’t joined the parents’ chat. He looked at Molly’s phone again. The panic escalation was unstoppable. Then Sherlock’s phone vibrated with an incoming call.

It was Lestrade.

“Greg, it's John,” said the doctor.

“John, what happened?" asked Lestrade, sounded worried. "We received a call reporting Sherlock has kidnapped several kids.”

The stream of curses that left John’s mouth made the detective inspector tear the phone from his ear.

“Sherlock hasn’t kidnapped anybody!” the doctor yelled “We were camping. A kid was injured and I brought him to the hospital. I left Sherlock in charge of Rosie and the others till I could arrange transport for them”.

“You did WHAT?” Lestrade sounded incredulous. “No,” John heard him say, “You cannot volunteer for an incursion to arrest Sherlock. You either Anderson. No, none of you. No, Donovan, you cannot shoot Sherlock with a tranquilizer dart”.

“Greg!” barked John “tell your stupid minions to stop organizing Sherlock’s hunt right now!”

“Where are you, John? I’ll pick you up. We just received another call reporting Sherlock took the kids as hostages”.

“I am sick of this kind of stupidities. Pick me up at St. Barts. And control your people!”

John rubbed his face. Molly looked at him, dismayed.

“I’m sorry, John.”

“It’s not your fault. Molly. I know Sherlock is different, but there is no reason to treat him like a…, you know”.

Molly nodded.

“They are idiots. Ignore them. I’ll go with you to the camp”.

“Thanks, Molly”

Greg and Sally appeared in that moment, the sergeant barely able to hide how pleased she was with the situation, the D.I. truly worried about it. A bit later, angry groups of parents started arriving at the hospital, looking for John, blaming him for leaving their children at the expense of a madman.

The doctor shook his head. Every minute, he found harder not punching anyone. If they were in the Medieval Age, John was sure they would have come carrying torches and forks to burn Sherlock alive.

“Enough of this!” he yelled and the crowd around him muted. “I’m sick of all this! We’ll go to the camp and you could see by yourself the children are perfectly safe with Sherlock. And then you all should apologize to my husband for all of this… bullshit. And you’ll be the first, Donovan”.

The sergeant nodded mockingly. John sighed. All of them left the hospital and got into cars to go to the camp.

Once there, John wished the earth to swallow him at that same instant.

The camp was devastated. Only two tents remained in their place. The kid’s clothes, toys, and other belongings were dispersed throughout the ground, torn and wet, some items have been burned, other ripped and the undamaged ones were buried in the mud caused for the night rain.

But the worst of all was that there was no trace of the kids nor of Sherlock.

John pinched the bridge of his nose, as Donovan joyfully listed all the charges against the detective.

“There must be a reason for this,” assured John.

“Where is my daughter?” asked Sarah’s father, “How on earth did you let our daughter with that… that…?

“The word you are looking for is freak,” happily prompted Donovan, ignoring Lestrade’s warning look.

All the parents similarly yelled at John. The doctor rubbed his mouth with his hand, now truly worried. He felt about to cry. Where was Sherlock? What happened to the kids?

Lestrade and Donovan intervened between the parents and John, fearing they come to blows.

Molly tapped John’s arm and the doctor rolled his eyes. The last thing he needed now was the black car stopping near them. Mycroft got down from it at looked at the muddy ground, disgusted, before coming next to his brother in law.

“What's happening here?”

“The freak has kidnapped Rosie and other children.”

“Sherlock hasn’t kidnapped anyone!” repeated the doctor for the umpteenth time, feeling angrier that he had felt before in his life. “And for the last time, he is not a freak!”

“Doctor Watson, though I admire your trust in my brother, no one in their right mind would have left him alone with … kids,” he shivered at the word as if they were some kind of disgusting bugs.

That made the parents ranted at John again, now extending their anger to Molly and Mycroft while Greg asked for reinforcements. The parents were getting hysterical, threatening with fill complaints against Sherlock at Scotland Yard.

“What do we do, John?” asked Lestrade.

“I don’t know, Greg. I'm aware Sherlock does not manage himself well with kids, but he’d never hurt them”.

Some squad cars arrived at the place. A bunch of officers joined the group, taking note of the parent’s complaints.

“I’ll give Sherlock one more hour. Then I’ll have to issue an arrest warrant against him. I’m sorry, John, but I cannot do other than that since they are minors.

John nodded, sunken, not knowing what else to do.

“Sherlock, what did you do?” Mycroft muttered, truly worried. 


	5. All is well that ends well

Sherlock covered his mouth with his hand and surrounded the dolmen, calling Rosie out loud, but he obtained no response.

“No, no, no, no,” he muttered, running both his hands through his hair, appalled.

“Rosie! Sarah! Mike!"

No response.

How could have he misjudged the man that much?

“Rosie!” he cried again, almost hysteric.

Sherlock covered his mouth again, panicking, on the verge of crying, swirling about himself, yelling Rosie’s name desperately. He ran again around the dolmen, looking for any trace that allowed him to guess which path they could have followed, but he found nothing.

He chocked, almost unable to breathe, thinking about John. He would never forgive him for losing Rosie. He would hate him again, as when Mary died. No, this time, he would loathe him with all his soul, with no turning back. For losing Rosie. For losing the kids he was responsible for. John would have to face the parent’s anger, complaints, the trial, the...

“Calm down, love.”

Sherlock turned around to watch his Mind Palace’s John, who was reclined on one shoulder over the dolmen’s wall, his ankles crossed, his bright blue eyes looking fondly at him, smiling confidently. He was wearing the same plaid shirt and jacket that the first time they meet at the lab.

“Calm down, love,” John repeated. “You are hyperventilating. You are going to faint”.

“I lost them, John, I lost the kids,” sobbed Sherlock.

“But you can find them. If someone can, it’s you. You are Sherlock Holmes, remember?”

Sherlock shook his head.

“I lost Rosie. I left her with a stranger. I was wrong about him,” he repeated, hitting his temples with his fists. “How could I have been so stupid? Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!

“Sherlock, you have to focus.”

The detective closed his eyes tightly, impotent.

“I’ve lost them!” he shouted, devastated, “Don’t you understand? I lost our daughter! I left her in a stranger’s hands,” he sobbed, clenching his fists, tears running down his face, upset about John’s calmness. 

“Molly, could you do the honours?” asked John, and Molly appeared in front of Sherlock.

“He said focus!” shouted Mind Palace’s Molly, slapping Sherlock’s face, making the detective gasp, swivel on himself, and, of course, focus.

He put his fingers in his temples, closing his eyes, breathing deeply, trying to think.

“Let’s see. It took me around a couple of hours to go to the camp, beat the fugitives and come back, so they cannot be far away since he is walking with fourteen kids. And convince them, especially Rosie to follow him should take time so… John, what if he hurt Rosie? What if he…?

“Molly…” called John.

“No, I’m focused!” assured Sherlock raising his hands, watching Molly preparing herself to slap him again.

“Our daughter is brilliant, like you,” said John, “so…

“So maybe she could find a way to leave me some clue about where they were going,” said Sherlock entering the dolmen. He produced a little flashlight from his pocket and, getting down on all fours, he combed the inside of the dolmen with the light. In one of the corners, he saw something glowing at the light. He focused it with the light and frowned. 

“What is this?” he muttered.

“You gave one to each kid before you go. By the way, you didn’t eat any”

“It’s a piece of the wrapping of one of the energy bars,” Sherlock said “But why is there only this one? There were fourteen bars. Unless…”

He pointed around in all directions with the flashlight. A little further at his right, he saw another sparkle in the darkness. It was another piece of the wrappings, carefully stuck on a branch.

Sherlock jumped, excited.

“She used them as bread crumbs!” he shouted.

“See love? You could do it”.

“Not without my conductor of light.”

“Yes, you could, my brilliant genious.”

“You two, stop paying compliments to each other! Sherlock, you don’t have time to waste. Go for the children!” ordered Molly and Sherlock rushed, looking around for the next piece.

Some of them weren’t easy to find, but Rosie had the precaution of poking them firmly on the bushes’ branches, so they were like little shining flags pointing the way to the children.

It was dawning when he found what seemed the last piece, since, a little further, he could see a cottage with a sheepfold next to it. Sherlock clenched his fists, frowned and ran towards the house. He will kill Rowan at the very moment he saw him.

He pepped in the first-floor windows. The cottage seemed empty. He surrounded it slowly and when he was about to reach the door, he almost passed out in relief.

Rowan and the kids sat in a little meadow in front of the house, but they weren’t alone. A herd of fallow deer, seven babies and three adult females were with them. The children were giving fruit to the baby ones, feeding them in silence, trying not to make any quick movement or loud noise that could scare the animals. Their mothers were a little far away from the hatchlings, making sure they weren’t harmed. Further back, half-hidden between the trees that extended behind the meadow, Sherlock could see a big adult male with impressive antlers. The animal fixed his attention in the detective, who held his breath and remained still under the scrutiny. Sherlock felt something similar to a deep and strong ancient wisdom involving the animal who, after a while, bowed a bit his head and faded away into the shadows of the deep forest, as if he had been waiting for the detective to arrive.

Sherlock regretted not having his phone to record the image of Rosie and her friends tenderly feeding the babies fallow deer, cutting the fruit in little morsels so the animals could easily chew them. From time to time, while taking the food from the little hands, they licked the kids, which was celebrated with suppressed yolks of excitement from the children, who enthralled, looked at their tiny teeth, their black noses and their spotted fur.

He was dying to hug his daughter, but, afraid of frightening the animals away, he stayed in front of the house. 

“Sorry if I scared you,” the detective almost jumped when Rowan whispered at his side, “But I couldn't let them miss this.”

Sherlock only could nod, a lump in his throat due to how relieved he was. He didn’t know how to thank the shepherd for making Rosie so happy, as well as the other kids, for caring for them... The man smiled, understanding.

“How did you know they were here?” the detective finally managed to ask without looking away from Rosie.

“Did you see the big male?” Sherlock nodded, “My son used to feed him when he was a baby fallow deer. Each afternoon, Jack took his bucket full of fruit and wait for him and his family to come,” Rowan lowered his head “They kept on coming after Jack’s death. At first, I wasn’t able to feed them. I was devastated. He and my wife…, but then I thought Jack would be angry with me for not feeding his friends, as he called them, so I started doing it again. Since that day, whenever I leave a bucket full of fruit in the garden, they come to eat”.

They are … magical” Sherlock didn’t find any better word to express it.

“Yes, they are. They helped me to find a reason to keep on living. And tonight, watching at the kids feeding the animals, I can feel my Jack here again with me, smiling, enjoying watching them too” his voice broke with emotion, his eyes shiny from tears. “This is why I brought them here. They are the first to see the animals since Jack… left”.

He gazed at the animals and the kids, his mind lost in his memories. After a while, he took a little close at Sherlock

“How did you find my cottage?”

“My daughter showed me the way.”

Rowan smiled in a way Sherlock realized the shepherd was aware of what Rosie was doing to mark the path to the cottage.

“She is a very clever little lady and very proud of his father.”

Sherlock nodded.

“John it’s a wonderful father.”

“No, her other father.”

Sherlock blushed. The man grinned.

“Take care of them, your husband and your daughter. You are lucky to have them”.

“I know it, believe me.”

“I do, Billy.”

“We should go back to the camp. The van will be waiting for us to come back to London. I wouldn’t want John to worry if he arrives at the camp and doesn’t see the kids. But they are going to hate me if I separate them from the babies”.

“Hate? They'll kill you,” Rowan chuckled. “Let me help."

Then, he opened his mouth and gave off a guttural grunt that reverberated down his throat. A few minutes later, the big male reappeared from the forest and imitated the sound, making the female fallow deer and their babies to slowly left the children and join him in the woods, slowly disappearing from the sight of children. Rowan waved his hand, saying good-bye to them, and the kids imitated him, as well as Sherlock. Once they were out of his sight, Rosie and her friends burst into screams of joy, excitedly commenting all that happened since they left the camp in the night. Sherlock ran to them and hugged Rosie so hard the girl barely could breathe.

“All right, troops, ready to go back to the camp?” asked Sherlock.

“Noooooooo” they shouted in unison, stomping the ground to make his opposition clear.

“Kids are not your thing, huh?” laughed Rowan. Sherlock shook his head and bit his lower lip, ashamed.

“You would like to see the fellow deer another day?”

“Yeeeeees!” Sherlock was sure the scream must have been heard in London.

“Then you have to go back to the camp.”

“Nooooooooooooo”

Sherlock chuckled.

“Not your thing, either, huh?” mimicked. Then he turned to Sarah.

“Sarah, could you make them go back to the camp?”

The girl smiled widely. She stood in front of her classmates and shouted, “Company… Hup two three four, hup two three four!” and she started marching to the beat of his voice, the rest of the kids following her.

“When you have a gift, you have a gift,” stated Sherlock shrugging and they both followed the marching kid’s line.

**********

John took the detective’s phone and dialed his own number for the tenth time, with the faint hope his husband will answer, but, as before, he didn’t get any response.

“I’m sorry, mate,” said Greg. “I have to issue the arrest warrant.”

John nodded. He was worried sick, not only for the children but for Sherlock. He knew his husband and, though the detective could act like a mad man sometimes, he wasn’t any of it. And he’d never endanger others’ lives, let alone children’s.

“I’m not sure if I could fix it this time, John” wailed Mycroft “This is very serious.”

All of them, parents included, remained silent for a while, each one immersed in his own thoughts.

The sound of a distant bark reached them and, barely audible, a rumour they couldn’t define.

Molly burst into laughers. The crowd turned to look at her, puzzled.

“Don’t you recognize it?” she took out her phone and pointed towards the nearby forest. “I can’t miss this!”

“Could you enlighten us with your wisdom, Ms. Hunter?” asked Mycroft, coldly.

Then he, like the rest of them, stunned.

A line of enthusiastic marching children emerged from the forest, singing full-throated, accompanied by a black and white border collie that run around them, barking as if was trying to join the song; they all followed by a short man in his sixties and the world's only consulting detective wholly covered with mud.

 _The ants go marching nine by nine, hurrah, hurrah_

_The ants go marching nine by nine, hurrah, hurrah_

_The ants go marching nine by nine,_

_The little one stops to check the time_

_And they all go marching down to the ground_

_To get out of the rain, BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!_

When they saw their parents, the kids run towards them, exhilarated, all wanting to be the first to share the adventures of the night:

“We feed a baby fallow deer!”

“We gave them fruit!”

“And a big one with… with...”

“We slept in a dolmen!”

“It was an adventure!”

“We had the best seats!”

“He has a border collie!”

“The sheep are black and white!”

“Daddy! I guided Papa to us!” cried Rosie, running towards John and jumping so the doctor could pick her up.

“Sherlock, what the hell happened here?” asked the doctor, about to cry with relief, kissing her daughter repeatedly. 

Rowan looked at the detective, incredulous.

“Sherlock? So you really are Sherlock Holmes?”

“Yes, nice to meet you, Harry Potter,” chuckled the detective.

The parents, hearing him chuckling and realizing their sons and daughters were wearing only their pajamas and jackets despite the cold, started demanding explanations at Sherlock, who remained undaunted before the parent’s anger. 

“He was protecting your children, bunch of idiots,” cried the shepherd in a hoarse voice. The parents shut up, looked at each other, puzzled.

“Protecting?” asked Donovan, “From what?”

Sherlock pointed to a tree about fifty meters away

“There you could find four of the eight prisoners escaped from Belmarsh Prison,” explained in a tired voice. “The rest are in a dolmen around three hundred meters away in that direction.”

Lestrade gestured to several officers to accompany him and walked there. 

They found the fugitives lying in the same spot Sherlock left them, exhausted after have been trying to free themselves from the boundaries during hours. As the officers proceed to arrest them, Lestrade went back to the group, shaking his head, astonished.

John smirked, looking at Donovan.

Another group of officers approached with the fugitives from the dolmen and made all of the prisoners get into the squad cars, on the way to the police station.

“You couldn’t just stay with the kids, could you? John teased Sherlock, kissing him gently.

“Boring, you know. Sorry if I scared you.”

“To death,” he threw a hateful look to the parents. Sherlock sighed. He was fed up with people attacking John because of him. He looked at the group of parents even more angrily than his husband.

Sarah’s mother coughed, embarrassed and approached them.

“Mr. Holmes, Doctor Watson. We all owe you an apology. John, you were right. Mr. Holmes not only protected our children but gave them the best time of their lives. I’m afraid we… were seized by… you know, rumours and…” she cast an accusing glance at Donovan, who lowered her eyes, ashamed, mumbling an apology.

Sherlock stirred up, uncomfortable, and dismissed the apologies with a wave of his hand. John, for his part, didn’t seem to accept the excuses.

“John, forget it. It’s not worth it,” said Sherlock.

“It’s not so easy, Sherlock” he was really hurt by all the atrocities they had said about his husband.

“Please, Doctor Watson, accept our excuses,” begged Paul’s father, “We said awful things, we know, we were worried and frightened and…”

“It’s ok” John cut him in a tone that clearly implied that it wasn’t. He moved away a bit.

Sherlock joined him and grabbed him by the waist.

“So, you were my knight in shining armour, defending my honour, alone in the face of danger…”

John smiled shyly.

“Always.”

“When we go back to London, I’ll remove your armour, piece by piece,” purred the detective in the doctor’s ear and kissed him deeply, making the doctor’s anger dissolve almost instantly. 

“And I’ll clean all that mud from you in return,” wailed John.

“You two, behave” nagged Mycroft, slapping both men in the back of their necks at the same time, making them giggle. “There are children around.”

“Time to go back home,” said Lestrade.

The children replied with a disappointed ooooooooh. Then they grouped together and whispered between them.

“Nothing good can come out of kids plotting like this,” warned Donovan.

Finally, Rosie walked towards her parents and looked at Sherlock.

“Papa, you cannot move from here, ok?”

“Why, Rosie?”

“You’ll see, you cannot move. Promise me?”

“Don’t worry, Rosie, he won’t move,” assured John, smiling at her.

The fourteen kids approached them. Sarah unfolded a bumpy piece of paper, written by them and start reading.

“On behalf of all of us, I wanted to thank you for our best camp ever. John, you were fun, made us laugh a lot and we truly enjoyed being captains. Sherlock, at first we thought you didn’t like us, you were weird, grumpy and elu..., elu...sive. But when you were alone with us, you started being funny also, you fought the bad guys and took us to see the fallow deer”.

“Well, this was Rowan’s merit,” muttered the detective, touched.

“So, we wanted to give this to you,” and the kids hugged both men with all the strength of their little arms. Sherlock and John hugged the kids back, and John winked to Sherlock.

“See love? You could do it”.

Sherlock smiled at the same words his Mind Palace’s John said before in the dolmen.

“Not without my conductor of light.”

When they broke the hug, some kids started whispering in an imperative tone to Mike, who shook his head. Finally, his face brilliant with blush, he approached John and gave him something.

“My phone! What were you doing with it?”

“I found it and…”

“Mike…” warned Sherlock.

“You cannot deceive my Papa” whispered Rosie in Mike’s ear.

The child lowered his head.

“I… only wanted to take photos. Could you… send them to me before deleted them?

John frowned and checked the photo gallery. Then laughed.

He showed it to Sherlock. Mike took photographs since the first day in the camp and the last one displayed the children with the fallow deer.

Sherlock closed his eyes and bit his upper lip, trying to restrain his urge to kill the kid.

“You... you have been carrying John’s phone all this time? Even last night?” he asked, his voice a bit high-pitched than usual.

The boy, looking at the ground, nodded slightly and scrapped the ground with the tip of his foot, his hands crossed behind his back.

John could help to laugh again looking at the child, the living image of repentance.

“Stop pretending,” snapped Sherlock. “You are not remorseful at all.”

Mike tried to hide a smile as John, shaking his head, caressed the boy’s hair, smiling. All was well that ended well.

A bit later, after Lestrade and Donovan went back to New Scotland Yard, Sherlock and John dropped on one of Mycroft’s cars, waiting for Rosie to say goodbye to her friends, who were going to take the van to go back to London along with their parents. 

“I need a week to recover from this weekend,” whined Sherlock.

“Only a week? I was thinking about a month,” sighed John, leaning his head on Sherlock’s shoulder, who chuckled and stroked John’s hair.

"I don't want to see a tent again in my whole life," claimed the detective. 

"Or a campfire." 

"Or a sleeping bag," John raised an eyebrow, "Forget I said it." 

Both laughed, closing their eyes, enjoying the peace and the silence inside the car. 

Rosie jumped on the seat in front of them.

“So Papa, Daddy, when are we going to camp with my friends again?” asked the girl with a wicked smile.

**Author's Note:**

> Hi,
> 
> Thanks for yout kudos and comments,  
> We really appreciate them!


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